Angus Beith admits he’s proud of his young Hearts side after they rolled up their sleeves to grind out a 2-1 victory over Berwick Rangers on Saturday.
The Wee Jambos were excellent in the first half at Shielfield Park and found themselves two goals to the good at the break, thanks to Mackenzie Ross and Dom Plank.
In the second half, Berwick pulled a goal back and piled the pressure on, but some good defending from the men in maroon and goalkeeping from Jack Lyon was enough to see the three points return to Edinburgh.
Speaking to the Official Hearts Website at full-time, Beith said:
"I'm so proud of how they saw it out. It's a big part of being a football player and it's what the fans at Tynecastle expect of you. They expect you to be able to show that grit and determination when momentum is against you in the game. It's a major quality to have in football so it's good to see they're developing those traits both individually and as a team.
"It's a huge three points for us. I said to the boys at full-time that the feeling and togetherness that we have at the moment is showing on the pitch and it's helping us in these tough moments in the game.
"I'm not sure if we win that game three or four weeks ago. We're in a really good spot in terms of defending our box but that grit and determination to see out games is there and that's a brilliant trait to have.
"In the first half we had lots of opportunities to get in behind them and we had most of the ball and controlled the game. They then changed a little bit, made themselves more compact in the middle and were more direct. We struggled to flip the momentum of that and in the second half, we spent a lot of time defending our box and set pieces.
"We did really well to defend them, but the disappointment is probably being able to flip the momentum a bit more, either by getting in behind them more or through having sustained periods of pressure, rather than giving the ball away, which I think we did too many times in the second half.”
From a tactical viewpoint, Berwick were holding a high line which meant Hearts’ holding midfielder were making runs from deep, typified by Ryan Duncan’s chance towards the end of the first half, which stopper Callum Antell did well to tip onto the bar.
Beith admits it wasn’t anything that’d necessarily been worked on, but was pleased that his players were able to spot the opportunities and execute the passes in runs in the opening 45.
"It was more just the state of the game,” he continued. “Their back four were really high and they weren't putting a lot of pressure on the ball, so it gave us the opportunity for those deeper guys to cause them problems and make runs rather than the striker or the wide guys.
"Those diagonal passes and straight runs from the midfield players, or whoever found themselves in those positions. We've been working on those opposite movements at the top end of the pitch, but with the way it played out today it was those deeper runs that were going to hurt them today and that ended up being the case.
"It was a great bit of movement from Bobby for the first goal, it was a similar one for Dom's with that late run and we almost had a third with Ryan Duncan.
"We spotted it really well. We executed it really well at the times in the first half, but I think we just let ourselves down a wee bit in the second half, but the execution of the pass and the runs let us down a wee bit and that didn't allow us to get up the park as much.”
